Windows 7 is actually pretty nice, now worried about Mac

[northy124]

Windows 7 is actually pretty nice, now worried about Mac

Yes it is very nice, shame that the PCs that I use 7 on at College are crap but on my Mac (partitioned) I have it installed and it is flawless, I mainly installed it for better Office Support and MeGUI but I have found playing back HD videos to be smoother as well so 7 rocks

Still love OS X despite my current problems with the OS

 

[Haruhi]

I used to be a dedicated Micro£oft hater. However, I needed XP for certain programs. Using XP since 2003-ish, I had become quite an expert, and generally wanted to use it.

However, due to much media attention and heavy promotion, I decided to invest on WIN 7.

And, even if it does have a few cheap rip-off factors that were clearly imported from the much superior Mac OS X, they styled them pretty well.

It's a good operating system. A very good one. XP was classic and Vista was an absolute failure, but with 7, Microsoft have hit the target at perfect timing.

For once, I'm kind of impressed.

 

[Gomff]

Example (I tried to match the specifications of the systems as closely as possible):

MacBook Pro 15"
2.4GHz Intel Core i5
4GB RAM
500GB HDD
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 256MB

$1899

Dell Inspiron 15
2.23GHz Intel Core i5
4GB RAM
500GB HDD
512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330

$829

Apple's system is $1070 more expensive. Is a fancy metal case really worth that much more?

It's a bit boring, not to mention very circular in nature, but as always in this argument the key elements in the equation are left out. Specifically:

OS X
Great support for hardware and software

I agree that if you were just shopping for a computer to run whatever software or OS, it's a big premium. But the Dell or any other PC 's don't come with those two things so it's a no brainer for some.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I'm not worried about Mac OSX. Windows still suffers form the key fundamental flaws which turn it into a nightmare. Hardware on the other hand...

 

[Rodimus Prime]

It's a bit boring, not to mention very circular in nature, but as always in this argument the key elements in the equation are left out. Specifically:

OS X
Great support for hardware and software

I agree that if you were just shopping for a computer to run whatever software or OS, it's a big premium. But the Dell or any other PC 's don't come with those two things so it's a no brainer for some.

I think he used a slightly off system comparison and a studio would of been a better one to compare but even then it still carriers a near a huge premium.

OSX may be better than Windows 7 but not that much better.

Apple worked really hard to get the image of the apple premium removed and now they are bring it back big time. The apple premium really hurt them in the past and now we are seeing it again.

 

[TennisandMusic]

I'm not worried about Mac OSX. Windows still suffers form the key fundamental flaws which turn it into a nightmare. Hardware on the other hand...

Like what? Windows is a breeze for me. 7 is especially capable and fantastic.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Like what? Windows is a breeze for me. 7 is especially capable and fantastic.

The UI has never been the problem with Windows. Its been its underlying structure. The Registry/DLL system decays and bloats massively over time. Most of the time its what causes noticeable problems to prop up. Because 7 is built upon Vista the problems still aren't going to go away,

 

[Rodimus Prime]

The UI has never been the problem with Windows. Its been its underlying structure. The Registry/DLL system decays and bloats massively over time. Most of the time its what causes noticeable problems to prop up. Because 7 is built upon Vista the problems still aren't going to go away,

I think something like that is a fundamental problem on any computer. Yes OSX does not use a Registry/DLL system but it still suffers from bloat and slow down over time.

The reason for these slow down is over time we all start installing more and more crap. Software that we no longer user gets left installed. Plus god knows how much one time use things we install and leave. I know for a fact on my 6 year old desktop which has not been reformatted in 4 years or so now I have gigs of software I have not touch in years. Plus I know there are little things in the start up that I used at one time but again have not touch in years. It become bloat. OSX is not is not immune from user bloat.

Saying that the registry/DLL system of windows is broken is not the reason for the slow down over time. The case and point to prove this is look at Windows servers. They can and do run for years with out any slow down and they run on the same DLL/Registry system. The reason that Server do not suffer slow down is they do not have users bloat being dump on to them over the years. No random one time use software, no software going unused for years and it would not be used..

 

[ChazUK]

I finally upagrade to Windows 7 (Home Premium x64) this weekend. I loved the pubilc beta's but as I hardly use windows at home I wasn't in a rush to get the final and went back to Vista x64.

The performance difference between Vista and W7 is immense and I've found myself quite enjoying it.

I'm in new OS overload at the moment with Ubuntu 10.4 and W7. I'm pretty much in OS Zen now. Snow Leo, W7 and Ubuntu seem pretty much perfect now!

 

[thespazz]

The UI has never been the problem with Windows. Its been its underlying structure. The Registry/DLL system decays and bloats massively over time. Most of the time its what causes noticeable problems to prop up. Because 7 is built upon Vista the problems still aren't going to go away,

By your logic, Snow Leopard was built on the buggy platform of Leopard, so bugs will persist...

 

[cjmillsnun]

By your logic, Snow Leopard was built on the buggy platform of Leopard, so bugs will persist...

Snow Leopard was built on Leopard (and OS X right back to 10.0) but that uses a better model for the settings (held in the /Users/~/Library/appname) which is much easier to understand and wipeout, rather than held in a central database which is prone to corruption (registry) and storing DLLs in c:\windows\system32

This make it fundamentally easier to clean up an OS X based system that has got bloated and slowed down (Drag unneeded apps to trash, log in users and wipe out library folders for said apps) compared to run uninstall routine, edit registry, finding correct keys in all parts of registry and wiping out, then going to windows\system32 and wiping out dlls (being careful not to wipe out those that are shared with other apps that are still installed and required).

 

[MisterMe]

I think something like that is a fundamental problem on any computer. Yes OSX does not use a Registry/DLL system but it still suffers from bloat and slow down over time.

The reason for these slow down is over time we all start installing more and more crap. Software that we no longer user gets left installed. ...

What absolute drivel! First off, MacOS X does not suffer from slow down over time. So long as the user keeps 10% of the boot volume's capacity available as free space, then MacOS X's UNIX VM system will be unhindered. Performance will be fine.

To your larger point, it continues to amaze to the extent to which Microsoft apologists will go. So now, it is those stupid users. They are to blame because they install software on their systems. Whatever are they thinking?

Seriously--to the extent that installing software slows down Windows is a design flaw in Windows. Installing software on Macs do not slowdown the systems. It is impossible for software to affect MacOS X performance if the user stays under the 90% hard drive capacity threshold.

Before you post such nonsense again, run Geekbench [or some other standard benchmark utility] on a Mac with no third party software installed and one with the same specs with a large number of third party titles installed. You may do the tests with multiple apps running and with them not running. Include the results in your post.

 

[maflynn]

Actually OSX is quite bloated. It does suffer from slow boot times, and consumes way to much resources

Just look at linux to see a svelte fast efficient OS

 

[roadbloc]

Actually OSX is quite bloated. It does suffer from slow boot times, and consumes way to much resources

Just look at linux to see a svelte fast efficient OS

+1

 

[VoR]

Just look at linux to see a svelte fast efficient OS

Linus describes the linux kernel as 'bloated and huge'

All my desktops are win7 and various flavours of linux, even my mp nowadays - osx doesn't offer me any advantages, only compromises.
My routers/file servers/devices are all *nix based.

 

[maflynn]

Linus describes the linux kernel as 'bloated and huge'

Yeah I read that a while
Compared to other OS's Linux is pretty tight. You can easily run it on a 512k machine. Osc and windows you need 2-4 gig

 

[Mac Player]

You can also run darwin on 512k machine .

 

[VoR]

Compared to other OS's Linux is pretty tight. You can easily run it on a 512k machine.

Yeah, the 'beauty' of linux is that you can fit it to any purpose - However I wouldn't say that the minimum (sane) requirements of any out of the box install of a desktop OS/distro like win7/osx/ubuntu/etc vary too much.

 

[Gomff]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a Mac running OS X is the only environment where it's possible to run the three main OS's at will (ie Windows and Linux through virtual machines within OS X).

I have a Mac Pro running Snow Leopard, as well as Vista, XP and Linux VM's. It's changed my point of view on Operating systems because Windows and Linux literally become applications and application hosts. I can have the best of all worlds but I couldn't do this with any other OS as the host because OS X only runs (officially) on a Mac. I also have a Windows 7 boot camp partition which I sometimes boot to for gaming or some 3d apps that are windows only, but it's a pain and I prefer to use VM's as much as possible.

I agree with the comments about Windows slowing down over time....It's totally been my experience over the years and was one of the reasons I switched to using OS X. In my Windows user days, I would reinstall my system at least once a year because start up and shut down times would get longer over time. Not to mention windows updates....Man if I had all the time back that I spent sat in front of my PC watching a progress bar, I could probably get a holiday out of it.

Got to say I'm really impressed with the latest Ubuntu. I've dipped my toe in Linux before but quickly given up but this time round I'm really starting to get into it. I really like the principle behind Open Source and as each year goes by it seems to become a more viable alternative.

And I love the stability and flexibility I get from a Mac Pro & OS X.....Yes it costs more, but this thing is like a tank, it's completely solid hardware and software wise.

 

[maflynn]

You can also run darwin on 512k machine .

Correct, but not OSX, and that's the point. Apple is no better then MS with adding features and adding layers that have slowed down what was once a svelte and fast OS.

As for darwin, is that w/o an windows manager like gnome or KDE because I've run a full blown linux on 512k, running gnome and it was fine.

 

[Cerebrus' Maw]

Correct, but not OSX, and that's the point. Apple is no better then MS with adding features and adding layers that have slowed down what was once a svelte and fast OS.

As for darwin, is that w/o an windows manager like gnome or KDE because I've run a full blown linux on 512k, running gnome and it was fine.

Was 'svelte' your word of the day?

All computers get bloat. My win7 box suffers a bit more from it as I have far more programs/software installed on it then on my Mac. But doesnt bother me at all.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Yeah I read that a while
Compared to other OS's Linux is pretty tight. You can easily run it on a 512k machine. Osc and windows you need 2-4 gig

Ah someday Gnome users will see the light.

---

Full blown OSX runs fine on a Gig.

Every 'Full' OS is capable of being stripped down to its essentials. So why are we having this conversation? (Windows Embedded, iPhone OS, PicoLinux, MiniBSD etc)

 

[InfoSecmgr]

It has certainly put pressure on Apple to make OS X 10.7 mind blowing.

I agree. But that is not to say that I think Apple is in trouble. I've been a user since the Mac SE...Windows and Mac OS always do this "leap frog" thing with each other. It just happens that Windows 7 has, in my VERY HUMBLE opinion, a slight edge over Snow Leopard at the moment. Not much of one, but it is there. I still use my Mac more than my Win 7 PC...I suppose in the end it is good to see competition alive and well. The better Windows becomes the better the next OS X will be.

 

[maflynn]

Was 'svelte' your word of the day?

Of course

All computers get bloat. My win7 box suffers a bit more from it as I have far more programs/software installed on it then on my Mac. But doesnt bother me at all.

No argument here, and while I've used win7 for a fair amount of time, I use OSX more often and prefer OSX over windows. If there were apps that I need, I'd be on linux instead but there's a dearth [new word of the day ] apps

 

[belvdr]

I've run a full blown linux on 512k, running gnome and it was fine.

I'm guessing you mean 512MB, not 512k.